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NEMO … NON NOSTRVM PECCAT (PETRON. SAT. 75.1). HABINNAS’ MAXIM RESTORED

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2019

Stefano Poletti
Stefano Poletti*
Affiliation:
Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa
*
stefano.poletti@sns.it
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Extract

In this short note I shall address a problem of word order in a passage of Petronius’ Cena Trimalchionis by pointing out an attractive variant in the key codex Traguriensis, which has been neglected thus far.

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Shorter Notes
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The Classical Quarterly , Volume 69 , Issue 2 , December 2019 , pp. 921 - 925
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2019

In this short note I shall address a problem of word order in a passage of Petronius’ Cena Trimalchionis by pointing out an attractive variant in the key codex Traguriensis, which has been neglected thus far.

During the dinner, a fierce quarrel between Trimalchio and his wife Fortunata breaks out. Habinnas, the guest of honour of the Cena and good friend of the master of the house, tries to calm them down. Here is the text printed in all Petronian modern editions (Petron. Sat. 75.1–2), with the critical apparatus of K. Müller's fourth edition and the translation by P.G. Walsh:Footnote 1

This thunderbolt led Habinnas to start begging Trimalchio to cool his temper. ‘We all make mistakes,’ he said. ‘We are human, not gods.’ Scintilla too spoke in the same vein through her tears […]

I shall concentrate on Habinnas’ words and, in particular, on the position of non as it is transmitted by our witnesses. Our primary witness for the Cena, the Traguriensis (Par. lat. 7989: H), transmits the whole passage. For passage 75.1, in the excerpta longa (L) and the Florilegium Gallicum (φ), we find only the sentence nemo … dei, as indicated by the vertical bars and the marginal indications in Müller's edition. Beside the omission of inquit in Lφ (an element not reported in Müller's critical apparatus),Footnote 2 the only other difference in the text is the position of non (nostrum non Lφ : non nostrum H). Of course, the different word order does not affect the meaning of the sentence: with both readings we have a double negation (nemo + non) signifying ‘everybody’.Footnote 3

Most of the previous editors of Petronius’ text (with very few exceptions) print nostrum non, even though they knew the reading of the Traguriensis, doubtless because they were influenced by the word order that was already known from the excerpta longa. Footnote 4 F. Bücheler, the first modern editor of the Satyrica, prints nostrum non and annotates in the critical apparatus ‘non nostrum transponit H’, as if there were something wrong in the word order of the Traguriensis. Footnote 5 As often happens, all modern editors follow Bücheler and endorse the reading of L and φ instead of the reading of the Traguriensis. On what grounds was the reading of H discarded by almost all editors? It is not at all clear. Some Petronian commentators quote the different word order of H, but do not analyse the problem in detail.Footnote 6 I suspect that the reason is that the position of non in H is perceived as unnatural—but, as I shall demonstrate, this is a misconception.

First, the variant nemo … non nostrum is acceptable and the following parallel, among many others, demonstrates that this syntagm is absolutely normal. Seneca (Controv. 10.4.4) writes:Footnote 7

puto, expertus es nos non esse crudeles; tamen nemo non nostrum, cum istis stipem porrigeret, mortem precatus est.

I think you know by experience that we are not cruel: yet every one of us, when holding out alms to these wretches, prayed they might die.

The position of inquit in the Petronian passage does not constitute an obstacle to the reading of H.Footnote 8 It suggests, rather, that the position of non in H, between inquit and nostrum, could be considered, at least to a certain extent, as lectio difficilior.

Second, if we consider the complex manuscript tradition of the passage, we have a definitive confirmation that the text of L and φ represents a banalization and that H offers a sound reading. In fact, L and φ are not reliable on this point, since, for this section, they are not transmitting the whole text, but only an anthology of excerpted sententiae. As has been said, inquit has been cut out: another intervention of the excerpter on the position of non would be a quite plausible scenario.Footnote 9 In what follows I shall offer a brief excursus on the tradition of the Cena and especially on the sententiae transmitted by L and φ in order to support my case.

H contains the whole episode (26.7–78.8): thanks to the Traguriensis we can identify the cuts and the original collocations of the excerpts in the other witnesses.

The so-called excerpta breuia (O) have only a reduced version of chapter 55 and, therefore, are not important for 75.1.

The excerpta longa (L) present a narrative block from the beginning of the Cena (27.1–37.5), with many cuts, followed by the reduced version of chapter 55 that we find also in O. Then L presents the ‘after-dinner episode’; at the conclusion of it, after a poem with a simile on Tantalus (82.5 non bibit …), L has seven sententiae from the Cena in the correct order (43.6, 44.17, 45.2, 55.3 vv. 1–2, 56.6, 59.2, 75.1). After this there is an isolated sentence (82.6).

φ has the poem with the Tantalus-simile (82.5 non bibit …) before the excerpts of the Cena. The first excerpt of the Cena is 34.10, a poem whose narrative context is attested to both by L and (obviously) by H. Then we find the seven sententiae from the Cena, in the very same order as in L. Below are the seven maxims (Müller's text and critical apparatus, with some integrations):

In the anthology attested to by L and φ the sententiae have undergone abbreviations and adaptations (elimination of connecting particles such as autem and enim and of the verb inquit; the addition of the subject apes). These changes are, of course, the consequence of a work of excerption; the presence of the continuous text of the Traguriensis enables us to detect the interventions of the excerpter. This common feature of L and φ prompted Helmut van Thiel to postulate that the hyparchetype L took the seven sententiae from φ. This is a thorny stemmatic issue, which I am not going to discuss in detail here.Footnote 10 Either L is relying on φ, or L and φ depend on a common source that contained the anthology of maxims: in both cases it is not advisable to prefer the reading of L and φ over that of H. More generally, it is worthwhile to note that the text of L is inferior to that of H, as Müller demonstrates precisely on the basis of examples of word order.Footnote 11

To conclude, let us come back to the sententia of 75.1. Petronian editors print a sort of mixture of the text of H and that of L and φ: they keep the inquit of H (of course!) and the position of non of L and φ. However, there is no reason at all to reject the position of non that we find in our most important witness for the Cena, H, especially if we consider that the text of L and φ is the result of an operation of excerption and rewriting (consequently, as has been said, the text of the seven sententiae of L and φ is of poor quality). This is a very instructive instance of the possible improvements on the text that could be brought about by a thorough reconsideration of the manuscript tradition.

Footnotes

An earlier version of this text was presented at the conference Un cantiere petroniano I (November 2017, Florence). I wish to thank the organizers (Mario Labate, Giulio Vannini and Giovanni Zago) and the participants for their comments. I am grateful also to Bruce Gibson, Stephen Harrison, Robert Jackson, Josine Schrickx, Ernesto Stagni and the anonymous reader for CQ for their helpful suggestions.

References

1 Müller, K., Petronii Arbitri Satyricon reliquiae (Munich and Leipzig, 19954; rev. ed. 2003), 73Google Scholar; Walsh, P.G., Petronius. The Satyricon. A New Translation (Oxford, 1997), 63Google Scholar.

2 In this regard the critical apparatuses of Müller's fourth edition (n. 1 above) and of other modern editions are a bit deceptive. It would be desirable to state explicitly that inquit is transmitted only by H and omitted by L and φ, as does Müller in his first edition: Müller, K., Petronius. Satyricon reliquiae (Munich, 1961)Google Scholar. More generally, the reader should perhaps be reminded more clearly of the particular traditional situation of the passage in L and φ (see below).

3 On double negation (negative pronoun + non), cf. Bertocchi, A., Maraldi, M. and Orlandini, A., ‘Quantification’, in Baldi, P. and Cuzzolin, P. (edd.), Constituent Syntax: Quantification, Numerals, Possession, Anaphora (Berlin and New York, 2010), 19–174Google Scholar, at 74–9, with further bibliography. As is well known, there is a difference in meaning if the negation non precedes the pronoun: ‘When the negation precedes the indefinite (non nemo), the result is a partial affirmation (‘someone’); when the negation follows (nemo non), the result is a total affirmation, equivalent to a positive universal quantifier (omnes)’ (at 74). Petersmann, H., Petrons urbane Prosa (Wien, 1977), 233–4Google Scholar notices that this kind of double negation is not so common in Petronius and occurs ‘nur in der Rede der Ungebildeten’: Petron. Sat. 76.5 alteras feci maiores et meliores et feliciores, ut nemo non me uirum fortem diceret; 38.4–5 nam mulam quidem nullam habet quae non ex onagro nata sit. uides tot culcit[r]as: nulla non aut conchyliatum aut coccineum tomentum habet.

4 On the first editions of the Cena, see Schmeling, G. and Stuckey, J., A Bibliography of Petronius (Leiden, 1977), 18–19, 57–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar and now the studies of Nicola Pace (collected in the volume Tragurii Fetus Mirabilis. Studi sulla controversia secentesca relativa al frammento di Petronio trovato in Dalmazia [Milan, 2019], which appeared when the present article was already in proofs): Pace, N., ‘Nuovi documenti sulla controversia seicentesca relativa al Fragmentum Traguriense della Cena Trimalchionis di Petronio’, in Pretagostini, R. and Dettori, E. (edd.), La cultura letteraria ellenistica. Persistenza, innovazione, trasmissione (Rome, 2007), 305–36Google Scholar; id., ‘Ombre e silenzi nella scoperta del frammento traurino di Petronio e nella controversia sulla sua autenticità’, in Moretti, P.F., Torre, C. and Zanetto, G. (edd.), Debita dona: studi in onore di Isabella Gualandri (Naples, 2008), 373–99Google Scholar; id., ‘L'epilogo ignoto della controversia seicentesca sul frammento traurino di Petronio’, Studi Umanistici Piceni 31 (2011), 131–48Google Scholar; id., ‘New evidence for dating the discovery at Traù of the Petronian Cena Trimalchionis’, in Pinheiro, M. Futre, Konstan, D. and MacQueen, B.D. (edd.), Cultural Crossroads in the Ancient Novel (Berlin and Boston, 2018), 209–21Google Scholar. The word order nostrum non of L and φ is found already in the editio princeps of the Cena (Padua, 1664), which ‘was printed from a hand-written copy made by Statileo himself [i.e. the discoverer of the Traguriensis] but altered in many places by the incompetent printer-editor Frambotti’ (Schmeling and Stuckey [this note], 18). More precisely, Annibale Gradari, director of the ‘scuola di Grammatica e di Umanità’ in Padua, was responsible for these alterations: cf. Pace (this note [2007]), 311–12; id. (this note [2008]), 383–5. The editio princeps of the Cena is here influenced by the excerpta longa-editions, as is apparent from a small detail: beside nostrum non, the editio princeps has dii, the reading of L, instead of dei, the reading of H and φ (Müller [n. 2] quotes the variant dii of L only in the critical apparatus of his first edition). On the influence of L on the Frambotti-edition, see Pace (this note [2007]), 311 n. 24. The text of the editio princeps is reproduced by later editions: J.C. Tilebomenus [i.e. J. Mentel], Anekdoton ex Petronii Arbitri Satirico, Fragmentum (Paris, 1664); Scheffer, J., T. Petronii Arbitri Fragmentum nuper Tragurii Dalmatiae repertum (Uppsala, 1665)Google Scholar; Reinesius, Th., T. Petronii Arbitri in Dalmatia nuper repertum fragmentum (Leipzig, 1666)Google Scholar; Arnold, C., T. Petronii Arbitri Fragmentum Traguriense (Nuremberg, 1667)Google Scholar; Hadrianides, M., Titi Petronii Arbitri Equitis Romani Satyricon, cum fragmento nuper Tragurii reperto (Amsterdam, 1669)Google Scholar, who quotes the reading of H in his note ad loc.; Boschius, J., Titi Petronii Arbitri Equitis Romani Satyricon (Amsterdam, 1677)Google Scholar; Nodot, F., Titi Petronij Arbitri Equitis Romani Satyricon (Cologne, 1691)Google Scholar. However, Lucio, G., Integrum Titi Petronii Arbitri Fragmentum (Amsterdam, 1670)Google Scholar—‘an exact reproduction of the Traù manuscript’ (Schmeling and Stuckey [this note], 18)—reports correctly the word order of H and indicates the discrepancy with the editio princeps in the collatio at page 69. On Lucio's edition and its useful collatio, see Pace (this note [2007]), 311–12 nn. 23–4; Pace (this note [2011]), 139–40. non nostrum is adopted also by the influential editions of P. Burman, Titi Petronii Arbitri Satyricôn (Utrecht, 17091; Amsterdam, 17432) and by Anton, G.C., Petronii Arbitri Satyricon (Leipzig, 1781)Google Scholar.

5 Bücheler, F., Petronii Arbitri Satirarum Reliquiae (Berlin, 1862)Google Scholar.

6 G. Schmeling (with the collaboration of A. Setaioli), A Commentary on the Satyrica of Petronius (Oxford, 2011), 315: ‘nemo … nostrum non (Lφ: non nostrum H; L and H at times show opposite word order)’. Gianotti, G.F., La Cena di Trimalchione. Dal Satyricon di Petronio (Acireale and Rome, 2013)Google Scholar, 468: ‘nostrum non è l’ordo verborum dei testimoni di Lφ; in H si legge non nostrum’. There is no comment on the problem in Smith, M.S., Petronii Arbitri Cena Trimalchionis (Oxford, 1975)Google Scholar and in older editions of the Cena that have a commentary.

7 I quote from Håkanson, L., L. Annaeus Seneca maior. Oratorum et rhetorum sententiae divisiones colores (Leipzig, 1989)Google Scholar; the translation is from Winterbottom, M., Seneca the Elder. Declamations. Volume I: Controversiae, Books 1–6 (Cambridge, MA, 1974)Google Scholar. Other examples of nemo + non + partitive genitive: Suet. Iul. 75.2 (Caesar) nemini non suorum quem uellet unum partis aduersae seruare concessit; [Quint.] Decl. mai. 6.10 (ed. Håkanson) equidem, iudices, ut sentio, neminem non mortalium fauere hominis sepulturae conuenit, quia haec una res est, cuius exemplum ad omnes pertineat; [Quint.] Decl. min. 311.4 id quamuis nulli non uestrum existimo esse manifestum, quibusdam tamen confessis argumentis ostendere uolo. The construction is common also with the pronoun nullus: Sen. Consol. Pol. 14.3 nulla non harum; Plin. HN 2.146 nulla non earum; Suet. Tib. 66.1 nullo non damnatorum. Examples with ex are also of note: Sen. Ep. 121.13 nemo non ex nobis; Dial. 11.14.3 nemo non ex istis … uiris. A general discourse on the double negation nemo non with partitive genitive goes beyond the scope of the present article.

8 On this point I think that it is enough to compare the very intricate construction at Petron. Sat. 67.1–2 ‘[…] sed narra mihi, Gai, rogo, Fortunata quare non recumbit?’ ‘quomodo nosti’ inquit ‘illam’ Trimalchio ‘nisi argentum composuerit, […]’. See Vannini, G., Petronii Arbitri ‘Satyricon’ 100–115: edizione critica e commento (Berlin and New York, 2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, on Petron. Sat. 102.3.

9 The excerpter of φ intervenes often quite heavily in the text; as we shall see below, it is possible that L depends on φ in this section. Another possibility is that the non was omitted before nostrum (haplography) and was reintegrated in the wrong position.

10 H. van Thiel, Petron: Überlieferung und Rekonstruktion (Leiden, 1971), 17–20. Van Thiel's reconstruction is endorsed by Reeve, M.D., ‘Petronius’, in Reynolds, L.D. (ed.), Texts and Transmission: A Survey of the Latin Classics (Oxford, 1983), 295–300Google Scholar, at 297 and Müller, K., Petronius. Satyrica-Schelmengeschichten (Munich and Zurich, 1983), 424Google Scholar. I am working on an article on the position of the Florilegium Gallicum in Petronius’ stemma. In general, I would like to point out that modern editors and commentators are quite vague, if not contradictory, on this respect, also because they are misled by the stemma of Müller (this note), 448, which is not fully compatible with van Thiel's reconstruction, adopted also by Reeve (this note). For the specific problem of 75.1, it is worth considering once again Schmeling's commentary (n. 6). When he comments: ‘nemo … nostrum non (Lφ: non nostrum H; L and H at times show opposite word order)’, he seems not to consider that L is possibly depending on φ in this point and, therefore, has no value in itself.

11 Müller (n. 10), 431–2; Müller (n. 1), xix.